Life in Boxes
by Liz Sherman
Summary: Addisoncentric oneshot. Post Desire. Oneshot


**Written while at work and posted at gafanfic because, well, I'm a cross-posting maniac. Anyway, this is a one-shot about Addison on her last day in Seattle.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own diddly.**

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There were days when all you really wanted to do was curl up in the fetal position and have a good long cry. Unfortunately, it usually turned out that on the days that you most wanted to do this, you also had to most to do. This was true for Addison. She had just gotten to her hotel room from her last day at Seattle Grace, officially. And now she had to pack.

Normally she would have started packing earlier, been more prepared, but packing her things made the whole situation real. And she didn't want it to be real. She wanted to go back to a time when she felt confident in herself, in her abilities, in her life choices. To an outsider, it would seem as though she were a flighty woman who made big decisions based on the men that were in her life. It bothered her that she wasn't staying at Seattle Grace for even a full year, but sometimes you just had to make a change.

She had found a place to stay in Los Angelos - an apartment, because she was tired of living in a hotel. And a hotel made it easier to leave. She wanted to commit to something. Granted, an apartment wasn't all that permanent, but it was a lot better than Room 2214 at the Archfield.

She had to pack. Callie had given her boxes, and she'd stolen packing tape from the hospital, her own sad, little revenge on the place that wreaked havoc on her ego. Packing was a bittersweet activity for Addison, something she alternately loved and hated.

Packing up her room to go off to college had made her ridiculously teary; layers of Addison being peeled away and packed into boxes made her life seem insignificant and easily containable. But having her life packed away seemed adventerous and freeing. Addison felt like she could be a new person, and she embraced the opportunity.

She and her roommate had gone through a box and a half of tissues on the day they packed up their belongings to go home over the summer. Completing her first year of freedom had left her feeling accomplished and very grown-up, but that was tinged with a sentimental sadness.

Every year after that, she had packed her belongings up twice a year and moved about from home to school. It always left her with a longing feeling in her stomach. When she was at school, she wanted to be at home. When she was at home, she wanted nothing more than to be at school. She embodied the cliche of wanting what you couldn't have.

She idealized things. Home always seemed better when you weren't forced to experience constantly. Somehow during the summer months, you managed to block out the stress and craziness that the schoolyear inflicted upon you and convince yourself that school was a carefree and happy place.

Packing up the brownstone had been traumatic. Not only was she stripping away the Addison layers, but she was stripping away the Addison and Derek layers. She had relived all of their happy moments, packing away photo albums. She had revisited the sad and maddening times, finding old appointment books with "Reschedule - Derek too busy" written all over their plans. She faced the embarassing, shame-filling times when she found the panties she had worn the night she and Mark had been caught. They were tangled in a bundle of sheets and her clothes from that night in the back of the closet, something she hadn't wanted to deal with that night, or ever, really.

She filled boxes up with her life and moved from place to place, trying to find somewhere that could contain her life when it was unpacked. For a while, she had thought Seattle could have been the place. But after a while, she even admitted to herself that she was still living in a hotel for a reason. Even if her mind didn't know it, her gut knew that she wasn't going to stay here.

She had to pack. Shoes first. She carefully lined the bottom of a box with them, making sure the shoes nestled nicely together in pairs. She liked the order of shoes. There was never one without the other in Addison's closet. She packed away her few pairs of pants and the non-dress shirts in with the shoes. Books went in that box, too. She was careful to leave a few of her favorite books out so that she wouldn't be completely devoid of reading material once she taped the boxes shut.

The next box was all of her skirts. She had a lot of them. Packing them away took a long time because she had to be careful not to wrinkle them. It was always ironic to her that someone who loved nice clothes so much hated ironing. And dry cleaning was not her favorite bill to pay. On top of the skirts went her shirts.

Packing a hotel room took a lot less time than packing a house. She hadn't hung anything up in this room, she hadn't added to her possessions. She hadn't even unpacked everything that she had brought with her when she came out to Seattle.

Addison sat in the middle of her room, surrounded by the boxes that contained everything she owned. She wasn't sure how she felt. She was sure that sadness was contained somewhere in this unnameable emotion. It was clear that there was a tinge of anger to it as well. For the most part, she felt lonely and small.

She sat there for quite some time, examining herself. At some point, she curled up in a fetal position, and a few tears did squeeze out. Shortly after she tasted the saltiness, she picked herself up.

She was Addison Shepherd. She had to remember that no man defined who she was. She was Satan. She was the woman who could fly into Seattle and take a man away from the woman she loved. She was strong and smart. She didn't need to sit around a hotel room feeling sorry for herself. She would be in California soon. California where it was sunny and bright and there were no ferry boats or manwhores or cocky interns studying for tests. She knew she was idealizing things again, but she also knew that California had to be better than this.

She had to pack.

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**Hope you liked it. **


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